The invention generally relates to printing systems, such as industrial ink jet printers, accessible from remote locations such as over the Internet.
Various industrial ink jet printers and software are known in the art, including the FxJet™ printer and corresponding System Master 2000® software manufactured by FoxJet, Inc., owned by Illinois Tool Works, Inc. (ITW). Such printers may be used for coding variable information such as bar codes on substrates such as packaging materials (e.g., the exteriors of corrugated boxes). These printers are known in the industry as “drop-on-demand” printers, and their specifications, functions and uses are well known. In one application, a horizontally stationary drop-on-demand printer is designed to code boxes moving along a horizontally-disposed conveyor. These printers may employ piezoelectric print heads using impulse-type ink jet compositions, such as those available from Trident, Inc., also an ITW Company, as described for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,154,761, 5,160,535 and 5,329,293, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein. Piezoelectric print heads contain piezoelectric crystals which lengthen in response to an applied voltage, thereby dispensing ink.
Ink jet printers typically receive print data from a source, such as a single host computer or a network with at least one host computer and a network server. Network systems allow sources within that network to control and keep track of printers and printing information. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,025,925, assigned to Lexmark International, Inc., incorporated herein by reference. Currently, for industrial piezoelectric print engines in this industry, control electronics, including both software and hardware, typically support between one to four print heads. These control electronics must be replicated if it is desired to use more than four print heads at a given site or for a given application. Thus, a not insubstantial hardware investment is required to control multiple industrial printers running at a given location.
Maintenance and service of conventional printers also requires on-site supervision. If the printer could be provided with an embedded server and be connected directly to servers on the Internet (“Internet connectivity”), such as servers controlled by service and/or manufacture technicians, for example, overall system cost could be reduced, and a number of servicing and maintenance advantages would result, as mentioned below.
It is believed that diagnostic software communicating over hardwire connections (phone lines using dial-up machines) has been used in the past to monitor printing equipment, having limitations attendant to such systems. However, it is not believed that industrial printers such as drop-on-demand piezoelectric printers have previously been provided with Internet connectivity capabilities. Possible reasons for this include expense, recent technological advances with embedded server technology, and/or the printer industries' focus on stand-alone or networked-only printer systems.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an individual print engine and/or a network of print engines with the ability to be accessed and/or controlled via the Internet.
It is another object of the invention to provide piezoelectric printers with remote control and remote diagnostic capabilities; such self-servicing printer heads would be capable of communicating with servers via the Internet, for example, and be capable of, e.g., automatically reordering supplies such as ink when needed, ordering printhead replacement, gathering and reporting statistics such as on printer use, allowing users to perform online registration for warranty or other purposes, and scheduling maintenance as required.
It is still another object of the invention to provide print engines which are capable of monitoring and gathering data on use and performance history and usage requirements, and reporting this information, such as to the manufacturer; preferably, such printers could access data from other devices connected to the Internet, or control or be controlled by such devices, for these and other purposes.
It is yet another object to provide an ink jet printer having a piezoelectric printing head with an embedded server for constant connection with the Internet and/or with intranet devices, and which also permits lowered costs by reducing hardware requirements.